Babur’s description of India in Baburnama is very interesting. He writes,

“The country of Hindustan is extensive, full of men and full of produce. On the east, south and even on the west, it ends at its great enclosing ocean (muhit-daryasigah). On the north it has mountains which connect with those of Hindukush, Kafiristan and Kashmir. North-west of it lie Kabul, Ghazni and Qandahar. Delhi is held to be the capital of the whole of Hindustan.”

From the death of Sultan Shahabuddin Ghori (1206) to the latter part of the reign of Firuz Shah (1388), the greater part of Hindustan remained under the rule of the Sultans of Delhi.

Babur observes: ‘The towns and the countryside of Hindustan are greatly wanting in charm. Its towns and lands are all of one sort; there are no walls to the orchards, and most places are on the dead level plain. Under the monsoon rains the banks of some of its rivers and torrents are worn into deep channels, difficult and troublesome to pass through. In many parts of the plains thorny jungle grows, behind the good defence of which the people of the pargana become stubbornly rebellious and pay no taxes.

‘In Hindustan, hamlets and villages, towns indeed, are depopulated and set up in a moment! If the people of a large town, one inhabited for years even, flee from it they do it in such a way that not a sign or trace of them remains in a day or a day and a half. On the other hand, if they fix their eyes on a place in which to settle, they need not dig water-courses or construct dams because their crops are all rain-grown, and as the population of Hindustan is unlimited, it swarms in. They make a tank or dig a well; they need not build houses or set up walls with khus-khus grass (Amdropogon muricatum), wood is unlimited, huts are made and straightway there is a village or a town!

‘Hindustan is a country of few charms. Its people have no good looks; of social intercourse, paying and receiving visits there is none; of genius and capacity none; of manners none; in handicraft and work there is no form or symmetry, method or quality; there are no good horses, no good dogs, no grapes, muskmelons or first-rate fruits, no ice or cold water, no good bread or cooked food in the bazaars, no hot-baths, no colleges, no candles, torches or candlesticks.

‘In place of candle and torch, they have a great dirty gang they call lamp-men (diwati), who in the left hand hold a smallish wooden tripod to one corner of which a thing like the top of a candlestick is fixed, having a wick in it about as thick as the thumb. In the right hand they hold a gourd, through a narrow slit made in which oil is let to trickle in a thin thread when the wick needs it.

‘The rich keep a hundred or two of these lamp-men. This is Hindustan’s substitute for lamps and candlesticks! If their rulers and Begs have work at night needing candles, these dirty lamp-men bring these lamps, go close up and stand there.

‘Except their large rivers and their standing-waters which flow in ravines or hollows (there are no waters). There are no remaining waters in their gardens or residences (imaratlar). These residences have no charm, air, regularity or symmetry.

‘Peasants and people of low standing go about naked. They tie on a thing called (lunguta) a decency-clout which hangs two spans below the navel. From the tie of this pendent decency-clout, another clout is passed between the thighs and made fast behind. Women also tie on a cloth (lung), one-half of which goes round the waist; the other is thrown over the head.

(Excerpts taken from Baburnama (London, 1922) translated by Annete Beveridge).